He sings, he fixes cars, and he takes punches better than De Niro's Raging Bull. Elvis Presley excels in one of his few '60s pictures that show an interest in being a 'real movie,' a remake of a boxing saga with entertaining characters and fine direction from noir ace Phil Karlson. Plus Charles Bronson, Lola Albright and Joan Blackman in standout roles. Old Warners contractee Wayne Morris didn't live long enough to know his 1939 role would be taken by Elvis, in a remake. On Blu-ray from Twilight Time.
8/29/17

It's finally here in all its glory, the Howard Hawks movie nobody loves. The epitome of clueless '60s filmmaking by an auteur who left his thinking cap back with Bogie and Bacall, this show is a PC quagmire lacking the usual compensation of exploitative thrills. James Caan caps a disposable male cast, but Gail Hire, Laura Devon, Charlene Holt and Mariana Hill struggle like heck to break out of glamorous but demeaning roles. But hey, it has a hypnotic appeal all its own: we'll not abandon any movie where Teri Garr dances.. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
8/29/17

We thought all the great vintage music documentaries were accounted for, but Murray Lerner's look at the Newport Folk Festival in the mid-'sixties is a terrific time machine to a kindler, gentler musical era. The mix of talent is broad and deep, and we get to see excellent vintage coverage of some real legends, before the hype & marketing plague arrived: Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Donovan, Bob Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Pete Seeger, Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, Odetta. On Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
8/29/17

Hello!

-- some fun news here in hot and dry Los Angeles, weather that I wish I could sent Texas way.

Apparently we could be expecting a Criterion Blu-ray of Ikarie XB-1 in the future, as a number of weeks back the label even put out a list of Czech titles that would be brought to the U.S.: Janus Films to Bring 30 Classic Czech Films to the States. However, no mention is made of specific disc releases for any of them yet. For the last fifteen years or so, a common litmus test for what Janus/Criterion will release on disc has been if the show appears on the TCM cable channel, with a Janus logo. That recently happened with the Wim Wenders science fiction epic Until the End of the World. Hope springs eternal

Hopefully this next link will be taken in a humorous, not blasphemous sense -- Gary Teetzel has discovered someone selling Vincent Price 'St. Vincent' Novena candles online. Good taste doesn't come with the purchase -- the little green bottle Vincent is holding bears a skull 'n' crossbones, indicating a vial of poison. The historical Saint didn't poison anybody, and reportedly died on the rack. Link presented as an unsolicited public service by Ban Savant Now (BSN), a leading nonprofit.

Is this the new feminist breakthrough? Director Kelly Reichart doesn't like labels, and to her credit as a woman director, her amalgam of three tangential short stories transcends the format in a studious, low-key way. Four interesting actresses present interesting portraits that illuminate the realities of life in the great Middle America. Stars Laura Dern, Michelle Williams and Kristen Stewart attracted the viewers, and relative newcomer Lily Gladstone shines as well. On Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
8/26/17

Even lesser Abbott & Costello movies are still comedy gravy to the avid fans of the fast-talking duo. Their first film deal away from Universal yields a so-so production graced with a string of their patented old-time comedy routines. And the transfer beats anything we've yet seen. Foolish window washers Bud and Lou are seen through the farcical paces with Joseph Calleia, Kathy Downs, Leon Errol and Mike Mazurki. On Blu-ray from ClassicFlix.
8/26/17

Edward G. Robinson uncovers another killer, but this time he's after a Nazi mass murderer, not an insurance salesman. Orson Welles' most conventional thriller is a masterpiece of style and judgment, with a good sense of time and place – and a lot of expressive shadows. How does this new Blu-ray shape up in comparison to earlier presentations?. On Blu-ray from Olive Films.
8/26/17

Hello!

DVD Savant's esteemed Field Correspondent Gary Teetzel reports from the A.M.I.A.'s The Reel Thing. The second day is underway now but we have the rundown on Friday's program:

Friday's lineup of presentations at The Reel Thing were:

1)

Recovering Early Optical Sound: Joseph Tykociner's 1922 Composite Sound-on-Film System: The title sort of says it all--this was an early attempt to create optical sound, with a test demo. It was a form of variable density, and was recorded live to the film. It took up about a quarter of the area of the frame, forcing the image to be vertical. The audio we heard was fairly crude, and the poor quality of the elements didn't help, but you have to give Tykociner credit for coming up with the system at such an early date.

2)

The Digital Post-It: Cataloguing Unstructured Metadata for Preservation in Distributed Databases Using Open Standards: Don't even ask me to try to explain this one.

3)

Restoring The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez: The Result of a Long Partnership Between an Archive and a Festival: This discussed the work that the Academy did for years in association with the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. They restored several titles from different Latin American countries, and even a rediscovered 1935 Spanish-language film made by 20th Century Fox, Asegure a su mujer. (Antonio Moreno from Creature from the Black Lagoon was one of the stars.) The festival ended a few years ago, but inspired by those past projects the Academy has restored The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. The original neg existed, only as un-conformed Super 16mm. Edward James Olmos had a 35mm blow-up print, but it was in bad shape. A rights holder had an interpositive, but refused to grant access. So the Academy scanned all sixteen hours of original neg and used Olmos' print as a guide to put it back together in the digital realm.

4)

Artificial Intelligence for Automatically Repairing Vertical Scratches. Another one where I could not hope to explain the science, but the demos they showed were impressive -- perfect restorations of shots with running vertical scratches from Don't Go In the Basement* and others. Most impressive was a 1907 short, Laughing Gas. Like most films from that era the source element was covered with countless light scratches; Algosoft got rid of all of them, making the film look incredibly pristine, like nothing you've seen from that period. It looked someone had gone back in time and grabbed a brand-new print from the lab, then traveled back to 2017. In fairness, a couple people in the audience noted that grain had been de-grained and then re-grained, and argued that all this work altered the character of the film.

* . . . because there's a restroom down the hall.

5)

HDR Video Mastering for Classic Cinema. This was mostly a rep from Sony showing clips from different decades of films they have transferred in HDR: The Bridge on the River Kwai, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Ghostbusters and The Fifth Element. I was most impressed by CE3K. They showed the scene where Dreyfuss first encounters a UFO while in his truck. The added brightness that HDR gave to the flashlight, the headlights and, most importantly, the UFO made the scene really vivid; you could believe that half of Dreyfus' face could turn red from the intensity of the light! The presentation prompted some healthy debate. A cinematographer in the audience had recently viewed a movie he had shot. Many of the aspects of HDR impressed him, especially color, shadow detail, etc. However, in close-ups and medium shots he felt that highlights on the actors sometimes looked unnaturally bright, and he worked with the colorist to try to tone it down and make it less (to him) distracting. He pointed out that he also felt the highlights on William Holden in the Kwai clip (Guinness and his men first arriving at the camp) looked excessively bright. With regards to CE3K he (or was it another audience member?) voiced serious doubts that Vilmos Zsigmond -- a guy known to flash the negative to reduce contrast -- would have approved. (Grover Crisp said that Spielberg had approved the HDR master.) The Sony rep emphasized that they get talent involved whenever possible to make sure they approve the HDR master.

By the way, since I've done such a lousy job of describing HDR in the past, here's a better description from the presentation's abstract:

"With an expanded palette of color and light, HDR technologies allow us to bring out more detail that was in the original negatives. The new HDR masters can represent values in the original film that could not previously be expressed due to the limitation of film and television distribution technologies. HDR technology provides a visual experience that can more closely approximate – on today's screens and for today's viewers – the look and feel of an original theatrical presentation. This does not necessarily mean that the images are 'brighter,' but rather expands on the use of better overall contrast, with better black levels and shadow detail, as well as highlights that can be used for effect. Maintaining saturation at bright levels as well as deep color saturation more in-line with film saturation are some of the main advantages for classic film titles."

6)

The Troop, Redux: An ACES Reformatting and Archiving Case Study Project: This discussed the restoration of a short film by the Academy to help develop its ACES system (Academy Color Encoding System), which aims to help maintain color consistency across a variety of formats -- HDR, HD, SD, etc. -- and work on long-term archiving solutions for digital content.

7)

The Sorrowful Spinning Saga of RCA's SelectaVision CED Videodisc: A fascinating and funny look at the story behind RCA's infamous SelectaVision Videodisc system, which spanned some 17 years. Studies to test the feasibility of discs with both picture and sound went back even further. There were some interesting bits about other technology along the way, like one offered in the 'sixties in the Niemen Marcus catalog that consisted of a console TV with video tape recorder (reel-to-reel, of course) off to the side, plus a video camera. Cost? $30,000. There was also mention of the first consumer home tape system from the early 'seventies (which I had never heard of) called Cartrivision. Here's an article on it: How Cartrivision's 1972 VCR Foresaw–And Forfeited–The Time-Shifted Future by Ross Rubin.

Finally, YCM Labs showed clips from a restoration they are working on, a 1924 Marion Davies film called Lights of Old Broadway. The film is unusual in that it mixes a variety of film stocks and techniques: black & white, tinted scenes, 2-strip Technicolor scenes and one scene with Handschiegel color. --Gary

Thank you Gary, and I wish I could be there tonight for the restored premiere of Hawks' Scarface, Shame of a Nation. --

I'd also like to point out a really important note from Michael Schlesinger about the truth behind the withdrawal from distribution of John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate. The idea that Frank Sinatra pulled the movie over issues with the assassination of President Kennedy has been debunked for some time now, but Michael was in charge of the film's re-premiere in 1988 and has the straight dope on the subject. It's in a comment at the bottom of an article on The Manchurian Candidate at Joe Baltake'sThe Passionate Moviegoer, from August 21.

Barns are a-burning, Paul Newman is recommended to Joanne Woodward as 'a big stud horse' and Lee Remick oozes sexuality all over Martin Ritt's CinemaScope screen. William Faulkner may be the source but this tale of ambition in the family of yet another southern Big Daddy is given the faux Tennessee Williams treatment -- it's a grand soap opera with a fistful of great stars having a grand time. Looking better than ever on Blu-ray, with Orson Welles, Anthony Franciosa and Angela Lansbury. From Twilight Time.
8/22/17

Sylvester Groth shines in this East German movie about a luckless private in a Polish prison, thrown in with a group of defeated Nazi war criminals. For a country that usually paints the ideological divide in black and white red, Frank Beyer's film of Hermann Kant's semi-autobiographical story is surprisingly even-handed; in the awful aftermath of WW2, millions of soldiers never found their way back to their countries of origin. An excellent addition to films from behind the old Iron Curtain, on DVD from The DEFA Film Library.
8/22/17

It's a crime comedy with class. Richard Condon and John Huston's gangland version of Moonstruck bounces effortlessly between earnest romanticism and cynical satire. Jack Nicholson's hit man is a brass-knuckle Romeo, and Kathleen Turner's mysterious bicoastal Juliet has nothing but surprises for him. Near the end of his career, Huston's direction is as assured as can be. With Anjelica Huston, William Hickey, Robert Loggia and John Randolph. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
8/22/17

Hello!

Altair Four's eclipse was good, but there's nothing like witnessing the real thing. Yes, Monday's solar eclipse was fun to watch -- a glimpse of the sun's orb was partly blocked here in Los Angeles, and we saw a lot of viewers become either elated or disappointed in the various network coverage. The experience of darkness at noon is pretty strange; I remember an overcast feel for some eclipse witnessed in my past, but never real darkness such as we saw on TV.

My joke is that, if some uncomprehending person got the time confused and ran out to see the eclipse at 11:30 last night, they might say, "Wow, it really IS an eclipse -- it's pitch black out here." That's a spin on the old joke about alien invaders: How did they get through the Solar System without being detected? -- They snuck in after darkness.

Every picture tells a story. A colleague of my wife ran out to get some eclipse glasses yesterday, and bought an extra pair 'just in case.' They proved to be useful, as demonstrated by the family dog, Riley. I think Riley has the appropriate attitude for a special day.

Reviews coming next: ClassicFlix's The Noose Hangs High with Abbott and Costello, Twilight Time's Kid Galahad with Elvis, directed by Phil Karlson; and Kelly Reichart's Certain Women from Criterion. Langushing on Charlie Largent's to-review plate are Visit to a Small Planet, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex but Were Afraid to Ask, La Poison, They Shoot Horses Don't They and Suddenly, Last Summer

Andrei Tarkovsky's bizarre philosophical science fiction epic may be his most successful picture overall -- every image and word makes its precise desired effect. Three daring men defy the law to penetrate 'the Zone' and learn the truth behind the notion that a place called The Room exists where all wishes are granted. Plenty of art films promise profound ideas, but this one delivers. Extra interview pieces give us the inside story from Tarkovsky's collaborators. On Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
8/19/17

Steve Martin brings down the house with this adoring, hilarious pastiche of mad doctor and disembodied brain motifs -- surely the epitome of cultured comedy. Under Carl Reiner's direction Martin is marvelous, and he's aided and abetted by the daring sexpot-turned comedienne Kathleen Turner -- who has a better handle on outrageous sexy comedy than they do. It's class-act nonsense and inspired silliness. Where else can a crazed surgeon proclaim his special screw-top skull surgery method, and utter the immortal words, "Scum queen?!" With David Warner and Paul Benedict; on Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
8/19/17

Robot roll call! This also-ran robotic fantasy from the 1950s is precisely the kind of movie one would expect from Republic, a two-fisted anti-Commie tract for juveniles. The studio comes up with an impressive robo-hero, but short-changes us when it come time for action thrills. Still, as pointed out in Richard Harland Smith's new commentary, Tobor filled the the kiddie hunger for sci-fi matinees, at least until Robby the Robot came along. Charles Drake is the adult scientist, and genius-brat Billy Chapin is the one who sets Tobor on a Robot rampage. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
8/19/17

Hello!

I haven't seen a lot of discussion on the The Good, The Bad and The Ugly disc I reviewed a week back, but I was pleased to read this The Edit Room Floor article on various versions of the film. It jibes closely with my own memories of what happened with the versions at MGM, and also agrees with my assessment on the film's color. I have heard from a couple of European contacts that, in their opinion old IB Tech prints from Italy were a little more yellow -- but that they were nothing like the 2014 Fox disc, with its green skies.

A couple of nice items from This Isn't Happiness, a challenging image & ideas page I've been looking at almost daily for at least 13 years now. This item "Oh Boy" is a quote from an old ABC News broadcast, about the impending solar eclipse, but also about a future that happens to be our present.

The second This Isn't Happiness item is Harry Frankfurt's Bull****, a frank and concise appreciation of the difference between fact and baloney in modern discourse. Whups -- those were two non-film related links, even though the second uses some prime film clips to make its case. My quota for the summer is now filled.

Is it true what correspondent Andrew LeBlanc tells me, that a particular Warner disc of King Kong Skull Island is now hitting astronomical prices online? The disc in question, says Andrew, is a Best Buy Exclusive, containing a 4K + 3-D + Blu-ray + Digital. Mine doesn't have the 4K, so I guess I'm out of luck for the Big Payday.

And collectors have found out that Kino's expected Blu-ray of William Dieterle's Portrait of Jennie (due October 24) won't be overloaded with extras, but will be favored with a new commentary from Troy Howarth. I'm hoping Troy supplies more insights into the film's twisted, convoluted production and release history: I've been following it ever since reading an article in one of the very first Cinefantastique magazines. Actually, if Kino delivers a high-quality transfer and audio track, that will be more than enough to rock my jolly meter: The Wind Blows -- The Sea Flows -- No -- bo -- dy knows.

Over at the new page Current Thinking on the Western, Italo-western connoisseur Tom Betts has a new article up detailing the history of his 'zine Westerns… All’Italiana!, from its origins in 1983, when typing and photocopying pages gave way to primitive first-generation home computers. Mr. Betts was an inexhaustible and generous resource for the documentary featurettes we cut on the Sergio Leone movies fifteen years ago, but I was only tangentially aware of the scope of his network of Italo western fandom. Tom's terrific 21st century online 'zine iteration, the Westerns… All’Italiana! webpage, goes into incredible detail on the genre and its colorful stars and filmmakers.

And Gary Teetzel closes out the column with a link to a new trailer for a thing called Godzilla: Monster Planet. You're on your own, brave Kaiju fans...

Arthur Penn's detective movie is one of the best ever in the genre, one that rewards repeat viewings particularly well. Gumshoe Harry Moseby compartmentalizes his marriage, his job, his past and the greedy Hollywood has-beens he meets, not realizing that everything is interconnected, and more than capable of assembling a world-class conspiracy. Gene Hackman tops a sterling cast in the film that introduced most of us to Melanie Griffith, here playing a disturbingly convincing bit of teen jailbait. With Jennifer Warren, Susan Clark, Edward Binns, John Crawford and James Woods. On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
8/15/17

Robert De Niro picks up a gun once again as a highly paid spy-mercenary-thief hired for a bit of international larceny, robbing a courier of some undisclosed secrets of one kind or another. Juicing up a Melville- like stoic crime fantasy with superb car stunt work puts director John Frankenheimer back in the game, with a worthy project. With Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Sean Bean, Stellan Skarsgard, Michael Lonsdale and Jonathan Pryce. On Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
8/15/17

Trailers From Hell’s Charlie Largent reviews the new releases of Bob Hope’s mid-career comedies on blu ray. The films only occasionally hint at his prodigious skills but, like the great comedian’s career, the results are a mixed but ultimately rewarding experience. Road to Rio, My Favorite Brunette, Road To Bali, The Lemon Drop Kid, Son of Paleface. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
8/15/17

David O. Selznick's absurdly over-cooked western epic is a great picture, even if much of it induces a kind of hypnotic, mouth-hanging-open disbelief. Is this monument to the sex appeal of Jennifer Jones, Kitsch in terrible taste, or have Selznick and his army of Hollywood talents found a new level of hyped melodramatic harmony? It certainly has the star-power, beginning with Gregory Peck as a cowboy rapist who learned his bedside manners from Popeye's Bluto. It's all hugely enjoyable. Also starring Joseph Cotten, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Walter Huston, Butterfly McQueen, Charles Bickford and Tilly Losch; directed by King Vidor, William Dieterle and several others. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
8/15/17

Hello!

The Cohen Collection's new Blu-ray of the long-missed The Old Dark House now has a street date, October 24. Gary Teetzel found the blurb on a Barnes and Noble page. I'm already thinking about a nice po-ta-to. They dropped the video promo from YouTube, the one that made the famous James Whale horror show look better than new.

And just in: Kino has announced that its new Avanti! disc will have new interviews with actors Juliet Mills and Clive Revill!

Here's one for the 'it isn't always me' department. Craig Reardon pointed out that in the review of Duel in the Sun, I had written 'Joseph Cotton' numerous times instead of 'Joseph Cotten.' It's one of the various spell-check programs that changes what I write as I write it, 'correcting' me. So just remember when you read my error-ridden texts, I'm not (quite) as incompetent as I seem. Or, now that I've established plausible deniability, I can behave as if I never make mistakes. Win-win.

Civic wisdom and political sanity are in short supply these days, so here's a genuine boost for your morale. Joe Dante is circulating this link to the short subject Don't Be a Sucker!, which Joe reports was at one time edited into his epochal comedy marathon The Movie Orgy. Done in the earnest style of an educational picture, it's an anti-fascist film, a scary, patriotic 17 minutes with excellent work from Paul Lukas, Felix Bressart, Kurt Kreuger, Richard Lane, George E. Stone, Ivan Triesault and everyone's favorite Nazi swine impersonator, Martin Kosleck (right). As a news report on the nature of Fascist slime, it's highly pertinent today, and who better to teach us basic American values than our favorite character actors from the 1940s?

Produced by the Army, the short subject is dated 1947, but some of its content indicates that it is a slight revision of the 1943 original listed in the IMDB.

Will Blondie, Tuco and Angel Eyes be forever facing off on the giant threshing wheel? Sergio Leone's Civil War gunslinger epic is everybody's favorite western, and most everybody has a bone to pick regarding problems with the previous DVDs and Blu-rays. The good news is that Kino's 50th Anniversary Special Edition takes giant leaps in correcting older audio issues . . . but the bad news . . .. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
8/12/17

Nobody stands up for Britons in the lower class trenches like the fierce, opinionated and outright brilliant Mike Leigh; his unusual writing and directing method yields terrific results in his first feature made for TV. And the early performances of Tim Roth, Phil Daniels and Gary Oldman should be the stuff of acting legend, '80s style. With Marion Bailey, Pam Ferris, Tilly Vosburgh, Alfred Molina and Jeff Robert. On Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
8/12/17

Another great Samuel Fuller film on Blu-ray -- this one is a crime tale set in downtown Los Angeles' Little Tokyo, that forms an interracial romantic triangle. It's risky for its year because of the sexual dynamics -- a Japanese-American man falls in love with a Caucasian woman. Fuller's approach is years ahead of its time, even if Columbia's sales job was a little weird. Victoria Shaw and Glenn Corbett get top billing, but newcomer James Shigeta steals the show. On Blu-ray from Twilight Time.
8/12/17

Hello!

It's upcoming disc round-up time. Newcomers Classic Flix have favored Savant with the Abbott and Costello comedy The Noose Hangs High (August 14), while the UK label Powerhouse Indicator may start sending review material in September. Kino has enough desirable product out to warrant a review every few days; a review of last month's Bob Hope movies My Favorite Brunette, The Road to Rio, The Road to Bali, The Lemon Drop Kid and Son of Paleface is almost finished, with Duel in the Sun, Barton Fink, Prizzi's Honor, Custer of the West, Visit to a Small Planet, They Shoot Horses Don't They, The Birthday Party and Tobor the Great just arrived.

Twilight Time promises 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, The Long Hot Summer, The Emperor in August and Suddenly, Last Summer up next, with Hour of the Gun, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef and Gun Fury 3-D due in September.

Arrow USA is hot as well, with Ronin and The Love of a Woman in hand and Don't Torture a Duckling, Erik the Conqueror and The Big Knife on the way. The loss for this summer are some Shout no shows -- they've put out two-score desirable horror pix and we've only reviewed two because a writer bought them for himself. How are Savant readers going to live without the full skinny on the irreplaceable The Manster? Hey, Tim Lucas loves it!

Trailers from Hell's Charlie Largent resurrects a real favorite, Stuart Gordon's epic gross-out about the grisly adventures of H.P. Lovecraft's Dr. Herbert West. Filmdom's maddest mad scientist brings dead flesh back to life and proves conclusively that the grave is no barrier to one man's libidinous lust. This 2-disc limited edition contains two versions of the film and a long list of extras -- full cast and director commentaries, the works. On Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
8/08/17

A happy discovery! This is a major late- silent-era gem on the order of Von Sternberg's Docks of New York -- a special treat that will please fans of director William Wellman -- he revisited parts of it in a later talkie. It's also a key movie in our education/adoration of the maverick actress Louise Brooks, the timeless erotic sensation too hot and too independent for Hollywood. Also starring Wallace Beery and Richard Arlen. On Blu-ray from Kino Classics.
8/08/17

Here's how one pushed the limits of good taste in 1975. James Caan and Alan Arkin run the gamut of racist, raunchy, sexist & homophobic jokes as bad boy cops breaking the rules, and director Richard Rush delivers some impressive, expensive action stunts on location in San Francisco. Does it get a pass because it's 'outrageous?' The public surely thought so. If the star chemistry works the excess won't matter. With Valerie Harper, Loretta Swit and Jack Kruschen. On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
8/08/17

Hello!

I've been reading a bit, thanks to some helpful links. I enjoyed Nick Pinkerton'sFilm Comment interview with Mario Adorf, especially what the German actor has to say about Sam Peckinpah and Major Dundee, where he played Sgt. Gomez, a Mexican cavalryman. The joke on that movie set was that Adorf made a more convincing Mexican than did the real Mexicans.

Valued correspondent 'B' has sent me an interesting book that I just finished, Hollywood Divided: The 1950 Screen Directors Guild Meeting and the Impact of the Blacklist by Kevin Brianton. It's a fascinating research summary on the famous Directors' Guild meeting in 1950, where, legend has it, John Ford led a rebellion against Cecil B. DeMille's underhanded campaign to toss Guild president Joseph Mankiewicz and institute a loyalty oath, one that would spread to other guilds and take over Hollywood. According to author Brianton, everything we know about this episode is wrong, taken from 1970s accounts either embellished or mis-remembered. DeMille was trying to jam the Mankiewicz recall through, but there's no direct evidence that he mispronounced the names of foreign-born directors at the meeting to make them seem un-American. Mankiewicz was never against a loyalty oath as long as it was voluntary. And John Ford defended DeMille as much as he criticized him. Not only that, but Ford's famed introductory line, "My name is John Ford. I make Westerns" is not an accurate quote! The most fascinating thing about the book is reading what scores of well known directors had to say at the six-hour meeting, and on which side of the fence they stood. According to Brianton, my late friend Robert S. Birchard in his bio Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood, was one of the first historians to correct the ledger as concerns DeMille. The great filmmaker was still a super-patriot who informed for years on the industry to the F.B.I., but he wasn't as dark a villain as painted by other accounts.

Gary Teetzel checks in with a video of comedienne Rose Marie taped at a screening last week at the Aero of a new documentary on her life and career, Wait for Your Laugh. Gary reports:

"At one point during the audience Q & A, someone asked Rose Marie if she dated anyone after the death of her husband. She said she had gone out a few times, and then shared an anecdote about her fellow Hollywood Square panelist who happens to be one of our favorite horror stars . . . how often do we get to hear a new prime-source story about Vincent Price?"

The photo is of Rose Marie in Paramount's International House, a pre-code picture . . . made eighty-four years ago.

How far will the new American aristocracy go to protect its privileges? Oren Moverman's intense four-way war of wills is sourced from a novel but shapes up as an intense stage piece in a chi-chi restaurant interrupted by flashbacks and other stylistic flourishes. The acting foursome is excellent, with Steve Coogan a standout as a truly disturbed character. Four adults debate their sons' high crimes and misdemeanors over designer cuisine. Also starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney and Rebecca Hall. On Blu-ray + Digital HD from Lionsgate.
8/05/17

A generic spy story becomes an inspired light comedy with the application of great talent led by the star-power of Walter Matthau. Matthau's CIA spook hooks up with old flame Glenda Jackson to retaliate against his insufferable CIA boss (Ned Beatty) with a humiliating tell-all book about the agency's dirty tricks history. Matthau's sloppy, slouchy master agent is a comic delight; Ronald Neame's stylishly assured direction makes a deadly spy chase into a wholly pleasant romp. With Sam Waterston and Herbert Lom. On Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
8/05/17

It's a quality true-life mystery-exposé that doesn't come off as tabloid trash or Oliver Stone hysteria -- the true story of Karen Silkwood is told without cooking the books. The all-superstar cast is something too -- Meryl Streep, Cher and Kurt Russell. Only a fine director like Mike Nichols could steer this one into good entertainment & memorable cinema territory. With Craig T. Nelson, Diana Scarwid, Fred Ward, Ron Silver and Charles Hallahan, on Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
8/05/17

Hello!

Arrow Video has a strong disc line-up for August, starting with Re-Animator but continuing with Frankenheimer's Ronin, Bryan Yuzna's Society and Mario Bava's Erik the Conqueror. Now I'll have to break out my A.I.P. 'Erik the Conqueror' poster.

Olive Films in August is said to be giving us Blu-rays of two seasons of the old Flipper TV series, which I can sheepishly report being a fan of at age 13 or so -- I saw the movie and liked the song, I guess. They're also putting out Larry Cohen's blaxploitation gangster pic Hell Up in Harlem. Finally, Olive has a disc of Orson Welles' The Stranger on the way. If it's licensed from MGM it ought to have a much better image than past discs – I've seen MGM's master and it's beautiful.

Gary Teetzel enlightens us with an interesting link from the Golden Age of Live Television: remember the rather good Toho horror fantasy Matango aka Attack of the Mushroom People? Now on YouTube is a copy (a poor one, unfortunately) of a 1958 episode of the TV series Suspicion called Voice in the Night. It's an adaptation of the William Hope Hodgson story that inspired Matango. A synopsis:"The survivors of a shipwreck escape to an island where a strange fungus grows on everything." Arthur Hiller directs an impressive cast: Barbara Rush, James Donald, Patrick Macnee and James Coburn. Joan Harrison (assisted by Norman Lloyd) produced for Shamley Productions; Robert Boyle did the production design. Not too shabby, huh? Skimming through I can see that the YouTube copy is pretty bad. The first several minutes are so dark that it might as well be a radio show. But with these actors we can recognize the voices!

Finally, for the wedding held at our house last week, artist Patrick Tsao designed personalized place cards for all the tables, each with a Mexi-Aztec design motif customized to the personality of individual guests. I looked at mine for a while before realizing that it beheld the likeness of a certain Irish movie monster. So appropriate!